It’s not only Milfoil that our divers pull up from the watery depths.
Recently, Upper Saranac Foundation divers retrieved pick poles from the muddy sediment of Moody Pond. The poles are a leftover from the ice harvesting days. Pick poles were used to maneuver 10- to 15-inch-thick, 300-pound ice blocks that were cut and collected from the frozen pond for refrigeration.
Moody Pond was the site of an enormous ice house that stored as much as 10,000 tons of ice each year for the Village of Saranac Lake. The ice house was originally built in the 1890s and operated by the Meagher Ice Company. An inclined ramp that extended out into the pond was used to haul the ice up into the building. After refrigeration came into use, and sometime after 1940, the ice house was torn down. The Upper Saranac Foundation Dive Team will donate one of the pick poles to the Historic Saranac Lake Museum and the other to Friends of Moody Pond.
While finding items like fishing poles, bottles, and anchors are a fairly common occurrence, this is the first-time pick poles have been retrieved. Other items found in our waterways include Go-Pros, boats, engine parts, and even wallets. The most interesting item found was a handgun, found in Fish Creek Pond in 2018. Thoughts of uncovering a key piece of evidence in an unsolved mystery quickly came to mind. In all actuality, the story is much more mundane. Upon turning the gun over to the State Police, investigations revealed that the gun was registered and was a legally possessed firearm that was lost from an overturned canoe in 2007.
The USF dive team provides AIS harvesting services Moody Pond in the Village of Saranac Lake. The expansion to other waterbodies helps offset the USF’s costs while sharing our knowledge of AIS management. The USF is nationally known for its AIS management success. We are happy to be able to assist our neighbors in achieving similar accomplishments.
